Randy Orton appeared on “The Rings Wrestling Show” this week to discuss his obsession with reptiles growing up, his change in personality over the years, and learning to roll with the punches.
Randy Orton on his obsession with reptiles from seeing Jake Roberts’ snakes while growing up:
“I remember keeping an eye on that large boa constrictor crawling around the empty shower stall they had it in,” Randy shared talking about being backstage growing up.
“Jake’s snake would be on the road with him crawling around, and I would just be in awe watching it. I grew up having a fascination with reptiles because of that. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m called The Viper now,” he laughed.
“When I grew up, I had an 11 foot burmese python as a senior in high school as a pet in my room. My mom was super cool. I would feed it rabbits. I would go to the pet store. They would have a batch of rabbits, maybe one was born without an eye, they would sell it to me half price, and I would throw it in the snake cage. What a weird kid right?”
Randy revealed that he had COVID this past June:
“In June, I got COVID,” Orton revealed. “I missed seven weeks of TV because my blood inflammation levels were so high that they were worried that it was going to turn into a mild cardease or echo cardease or something with the heart.”
“I lost 20 pounds during Covid. I had it so bad. I was stick skinny, stick thin,” Randy shared. “I had a chance to rebuild. I’m either going to do it this way or I’m going to do it that way.”
“I cut the alcohol. I cut the sugar. I started training a little harder. I started seeing another physical therapist for some issues with my shoulder and my back because we’re always staying up on those injuries. Here we are six months later and I think I’m feeling the best that I’ve felt physically since I can remember to be honest with you.”
Randy said he’s learned to roll with the punches nowadays when it comes to wrestling angles and scripts:
“I think rolling with the punches is something I realized more recently than not that if I just accept that I’m out of control on some of these situations, and I’m talking about the business right now, if I just take what they give me and do it to the best of my ability, like I was doing stuff with The Fiend a year ago and it was hard. Some of it was rough,” Orton said.
“They put me in the burn mask one week and then the next week I’m out of it and my skin healed. It’s tough,” he laughed.
“Then you go to who you would imagine you would go to when you have a gripe and say, ‘Hey, I can’t do this. Aren’t they going to…’ and you hear, ‘Just do it. It’s going to work.’ Okay. You roll with the punches. You do your best job.”
“Even though I’m lighting a dead guy on fire and he’s the babyface, I had a very hard time trying to make that real, but I feel like I did a good enough job that even though it was a little cringe worthy for some people because I really, really, tried to just believe that I was going through this, I think it helped people buy into it a little bit more while we’re suspending that reality and trying to make them believe like they would when they’re watching the most recent Halloween movie or Jason movie,” he said.
“They want to believe when they’re in there. They want to be entertained so I think the more I can accept that, make that real, and make that something I’m feeling and not just words that some 22 year old writer wrote on paper for me, but if I believe it and make it mine, I can get them to believe. I think that’s what changed with my promos too recently.”
Orton would go on to talk about a variety of other topics during the full interview including how long he would like to wrestle, his current contract, and his thoughts on his reputation backstage.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “The Ringer Wrestling Show” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
